Last year Alleima, former Sandvik Materials Technology, a global manufacturer of advanced stainless steels, special alloys, and heating systems, announced the investment and expansion of its Mehsana manufacturing facility in India. As part of the former announcement, the third phase of the expansion will start, which include the set-up of a new heat exchanger tube factory. The new factory will meet burgeoning demand of locally manufactured products in India.
“The Mehsana Mill is an important facility in our journey towards increasing our footprint in Asia. As part of our strategy to invest capacity and capability in growth markets we last year announced the investment of a brand new hydraulic and instrumentation tubing factory, as well as the extensively revamped finishing facilities for the heat exchanger flow. These facilities are in advanced stages of completion. To further strengthen our growth in India we now start the third phase of that growth initiative, where we will set up a new heat exchanger tube factory. This will double our capacity of heat exchanger tubes in India and enable us to capture growth opportunities coming from the increased petrochemical growth in India over the next decade,” says Michael Andersson, president of Tube division, Alleima.
The Mehsana manufacturing facility has been successively expanded and modernized in recent years to increase availability of high quality seamless stainless steel and high alloy tubes as well as to strengthen service in the region.
The first phase of this growth initiative was completed in 2020 when Alleima added a new cold finishing tube manufacturing line mainly for heat exchanger tubing and other demanding industrial applications. The second phase of the investment was setting up a bright annealed and finishing line for heat exchanger, along with hydraulic and instrumentation tube factory which will help to cater to the growth in the natural gas segment. The investment during the third phase, the set-up of a new heat exchanger tube factory will be fully completed and operational by Q3 2023.
The projected global growth for the chemical and petrochemical market is expected to be around 4 percent CAGR between 2021-2026. India is expected to be accounting for a significant portion of this growth. This will translate to significant growth opportunity in heat exchanger tubes.
“For the past few years, we have been focusing on boosting capacity, adding new products, and constantly improving to meet the highest global quality standards as well as customer specifications. This investment further strengthens our heat exchanger tube capacity and will enable a significant transformation in our portfolio towards special alloys and enabling us to capture growth in the chemical and petrochemical customer segment in India. We look forward to ramping up on our production to cater to the increasing demand for locally manufactured products in India, while aligning with the Government of India’s “Make in India” and “Atmanirbhar Bharat” or “Self-Reliant” program. We also look forward to enabling further export and swifter delivery times to customers across the region,” says Sharath Satish, president, business unit Tube APAC, Alleima.